By Desmond Lachman, American Enterprise Institute, Washington DC, US
Letter to Financial Times
Sir, In referring to the possibility of Greece leaving the euro, your newspaper consistently uses the word “Grexit”. It would seem worth asking whether that choice is the most appropriate considering that “Grexodus” might better convey that notion.
Two arguments would favour “Grexodus”. The first is etymological. The English word “exit” is Latin in origin while the word “exodus” is Greek in origin. As an example, the original Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible did not refer to the Children of Israel’s exit from the Land of Egypt. Rather, it referred to their exodus.
The second argument is more substantive. “Grexit” has a negative connotation in that it conveys the sense that a country might be involuntarily ejected from a desirable club. However, in Greece’s specific case, after having suffered six years of economic recession within the straitjacket of euro membership, which has contributed to a Greek economic depression on a scale similar to that in the US during the 1930s, might not being freed from that exchange rate constraint demand a word with a more positive connotation?
The biblical use of the word exodus conveyed the sense of the Children of Israel being delivered from slavery. In the same way, might not the word “Grexodus” convey the idea that Greece will have left the bondage of the euro-straitjacket that has reduced the country to penury and that has subjected it to years of political humiliation?
This is not to say that abandoning the euro will be an easy task for Greece since, if poorly managed, it could very well go awry. However, it is to say that outside the euro, Greece will again at least have a chance for longer-run economic and social prosperity.
